GADZOOKS! Antineutrino Spectroscopy with Large Water Cerenkov Detectors

2003/09/26 by J. F. Beacom, John F. Beacom, M. R. Vagins +1 · 2 voices · 57 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #astro-ph #hep-ex #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.171101

published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 93 (2004) 171101 · 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. Correspondence to [email protected], [email protected]

arxiv created 2003/09/26 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01

Abstract

We propose modifying large water Čerenkov detectors by the addition of 0.2% gadolinium trichloride, which is highly soluble, newly inexpensive, and transparent in solution. Since Gd has an enormous cross section for radiative neutron capture, with ∑ E_γ= 8 MeV, this would make neutrons visible for the first time in such detectors, allowing antineutrino tagging by the coincidence detection reaction ν_e + p → e⁺ + n (similarly for ν_μ). Taking Super-Kamiokande as a working example, dramatic consequences for reactor neutrino measurements, first observation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background, Galactic supernova detection, and other topics are discussed.

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Discussions

• My favorite science acronym is GADZOOKS! Gadolinium Antineutrino Detec­tor Zealously Outperforming Old Kamiokande, Super! Yes the exclamation point is part of it This is kinda an old paper, but I h [bsky, 13 points, 2 comments]
• It's too early to be sure, but this is very encouraging! Some of our key papers behind this result include the one proposing to add gadolinium to Super-Kamiokande (Beacom and Vagins, arxiv.org/abs/hep [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]

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